


the center cannot hold

by interstellarcadence



Category: Elder Scrolls
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, also i write gay men like actual people!, it has a good happy ending dw!!, it's not canon compliant in that regards, wild!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 06:08:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18805291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellarcadence/pseuds/interstellarcadence
Summary: vanus galerion rescues mannimarco from the depths of coldharbour.





	1. prologue

         it was, of course, sensible to house them together. the two youngest students of artaeum, both eleven, both brimming with that light tingling of magicka. 

         and yes, of course, some moth priest had seen this long ago. light and shadow warring on canvas, a great, ugly battle that would claim over a thousand lives, and all the entwined limbs before that. this was nothing more than a destined duality, a predetermined bond of something beyond love and hate. an image of two mages stepping along in an old elven folk dance. there was nothing they could do to stop it. there was nothing the psijics could have prepared for. just visions of prophecies humming along a golden scroll and a man in a moth’s robe, now blind, seeing an unwanted future.


	2. visions

        trechtus, who supposes he is now vanus because that other man in the gray said so, stops in the doorway of his new room. one half is already decorated, all sorts of baubles lining a shelf, a book of hymns written in ayleidoon sits next to a half finished translation. and there’s a boy, around his age, floating in the midst of papers.

        upon sight of someone staring at him, the floating boy lets out some mixture of a sharp inhale and a gasp, and crashes to the floor.

        “i didn’t mean to disturb you!” trechtus says, concern knitting itself in his eyebrows. “i’m so sorry!”

        the other boy doesn’t say anything. simply rubs his head, looks to his papers, and starts gathering them up.

        “what’s your name?” trechtus asks, stepping towards the empty half of the room and setting his things down.

        “mannimarco,” he says, looking with a gaze trechtus can’t figure out. the papers are mostly sorted by now, and they look to be poems written in old aldmeris with translations scribbled in the margins.

        “did they give you that name when you got here too?” trechtus asks. mannimarco looks puzzled, and trechtus feels his cheeks flush.

        “no. but i assume they gave you a new one?” mannimarco asks, now standing at full height. bags pull at his eyes, and something about him seems too old for a young kid, but otherwise he looks alright to trechtus.

        “yeah,” he says. “vanus galerion.”

        “do you want me to call you that?” mannimarco asks.

        “if you’d like.” he begins spreading out his new supplies, a few robes, some quills, ink, a large notebook. “i’ll also respond to trechtus.”

        “trechtus,” mannimarco repeats. “i can see why they’d change it. it’s a common name. more apt for serfs or beggars than mages.”

        vanus feels like somehow mannimarco can see his whole, ugly past. the scrolls and tomes hidden underneath the floorboards while his heart raced. his dad’s rotting corpse with those dead eyes staring past the isles. the forest the troubadours found him in, half-dead and ready to figure out what afterlife awaits him. vanus doesn’t like this feeling. mannimarco continues talking anyways.

        “personally, i think it sounds lovely. there’s a certain flow to it. my parents, however, would never admit it.” something about the way mannimarco refers to his parents feels cold.

“why not?” vanus asks.

        “they’re political advisers.” mannimarco’s voice seems far-off, somehow. there’s no love or admiration present. it’s nothing like how trechtus talks about his dad. it’s chilling. “my mother used to advise the king. however, my birth ended that.”

        “so she quit working to raise you?”

        “no. she took another position, less glamorous and more hours. i was the son of the king. they needed to avoid a scandal. it was logical.”

        “you’re the king’s son?” trechtus pushes, bewildered. “but if you’re a prince why are you-”

        “i’m not a prince,” mannimarco cuts off. his eyes look glassy, and trechtus realizes he shouldn’t have pressed him. “i’m a bastard. and i no longer wish to speak of this.”

        “that’s alright,” vanus says. he works on spreading out his things, trinkets from when he traveled with the troubadours and his new supplies. worldlessly, mannimarco grabs his sheets and helps him make his bed.

 

\----------

 

        “vanus?”

        “yes?”

        “do you promise to always be there?”

        their voices still have that easy cadence of childhood. they’re fourteen now, little more than novices in some grand order they pretend to understand. mannimarco looks at how vanus’s features tremble in the ever-flickering candelight, and his heart races faster than it had before.

        “of course, manni. i promise.”

        it’s hard to say who reaches for the other’s hand first, but then there they are, watching as the candle burns down into the last moments of light. mannimarco moves to vanus’s bed, and vanus moves to spool their limbs together. everything grows quiet, save for the quiet beating of hearts and the rise and fall of lungs.

        “i want to create a link with you,” mannimarco says, sounding rushed. “the projection technique, the one iachesis taught us today. please?”

        “we hardly have time tonight,” vanus says. “we have to be in the lab at dawn.”

        “please, vanus. please, just do it with me tonight,” mannimarco pleads. vanus thinks he hears mannimarco’s breath changing. it’s more panicked maybe.  “so you’ll be with me always.”

        “alright. do you remember the spell?” the dim candlelight is just enough to where vanus can see a nod. they move, shifting to be forehead to forehead, eyelashes sweeping closed as hands join together. magic pools around them, running its fingers through their hair, and with a burst of light, they know they are linked. able to project themselves to each other, whenever they should need.

        the candlelight falls, cloaking the room in the calm night, and both of them sleep better than they ever had before.

 

\----------

 

        every time vanus looks at him, he scowls. he wants to scream some ugly cry and let the whole isle hear it. how could mannimarco do this? how could mannimarco so proudly resurrect that bird like that, and even worse, expect vanus to be proud? to join him? this was not magic, this was not studying, this was absolute madness! this was a crime against the gods themselves!

        surely, iachesis would talk some sense into him. he has to. but when the door swings open, only iachesis remains. mannimarco is gone.

        “where is he?” vanus asks, forgetting his anger and letting it pull into concern.

        “gone,” iachesis says. “banished. he’s in tamriel now.”

        “just like that? you didn’t give him a chance to gather supplies or his things or-”

        “vanus, you must forget about him.” iachesis voice is usually comforting. it reminds vanus of how he misremembers his dad’s voice. but right now it feels bitter. “you are both twenty now. mannimarco must learn how to practice magick responsibly, and you must learn how to detach.”

        “what if i don’t want to detach?” vanus asks. “magick is about emotion. raw, unadulterated magick is, in fact, the purest form of emotion.”

        “exactly.” iachesis crosses the room and looks out the window, as if mannimarco might still be in the courtyard. “you must learn to control your emotion in order to control your abilities. you have great potential, vanus. don’t allow yourself to become so lost as mannimarco.”

        vanus feels his anger stirring again, but can’t afford to act on it. he bows, leaves, and goes back to his room, now truly his alone. he looks to mannimarco’s books, his nearly finished translation of the ayelidoon epic _sunnabe an varlias av tam,_ still on his unmade bed. vanus drafts the first proposal for the mage’s guild that night.


	3. projection

        the mage’s guild had long sprawled out of firsthold. under vanus’s guiding palm, it had stretched its fingers across summerset, and then mainland tamriel. but as vanus’s followers grew, so did mannimarco’s. the order of the black worm, more often referred to simply as the “worm cult”, had burrowed its way into any cave or forgotten ayelid city it could. 

        it brought vanus nothing but worry or concern. no one would teach that many people such dark arts as necromancy for a benign reason. mannimarco was planning something. and when the imperial throne was usurped, and the planes of nirn and coldharbour crashed together, vanus figured out what that plan was.

        it’d been two years since that whole dreadful situation had occurred, and then been stopped. vanus has heard of mannimarco’s last schemes- his bid for the amulet, for godhood itself. he can’t tell if it was the royal part of him, or the bastard part that caused him to so desperately yearn to feel in power. but his yearning wasn’t enough, and mannimarco had been defeated.

        and vanus is so skilled at pretending to be happy about it, it seems he has even convinced himself this is justice. he has no idea what has become of mannimarco now. just as long as he isn’t looming over the mage’s guild anymore, that is all vanus needs to know. or maybe just wants to know. or maybe there isn’t really a difference anymore.

        it happens during a meeting. vanus and an advisor are arguing, the old altmer tradition of seeing whose voice can carry further and louder. the yelling stops abruptly as vanus’s head sears with pain, pushing him down into his seat. his eyes become overwhelmed with a mix of dark blues and purples. there is a lump of white and red in the middle, which focuses into the weeping form of some ghastly rendition of mannimarco.

        his hair is matted, stained with his own sweat and blood. he seems to be completely chained, held, suspended in this hellish dimension. he looks up, and vanus sees those eyes like he rarely had before, spilling over with tears, devoid of any spirit. ‘help me,’ mannimarco says, voice hoarse, words warped with a split lip. ‘vanus please-‘

        mannimarco’s eyes dart to the left, to something vanus can’t see, and a look of pure horror crosses mannimarco’s face. the vision fades out, and vanus is left in the meeting room, swarmed by an army of concerned faces.

        he blinks a few times, cradles his head in his hands, and groans. he promptly excuses himself. vanus walks as fast as he can without raising alarm to his private study in the guildhall, locks the door, and feels his eyes grow damp. he shouldn’t care about mannimarco anymore. he knows that. but just the mere fact he had projected to him, used the bond formed on one of his anxiety ridden nights— vanus knows he has to do something. anything. he will dive into oblivion if that’s what it takes. politics and alliances be damned, vanus galerion will save mannimarco.

        he unlocks the door, races outside, and goes into the guild’s library. he no longer concerns himself with who might grow panicked at such erratic behavior. there are shelves upon shelves spilling with rare first editions on theories about illusion magick or practical alteration. vanus doesn’t care about the mysteries of magickal schools right now. he plucks out the one book he knows he needs.  _ an analysis of coldharbour: the firsthand account  _ by an old friend, vastasrie.

        he ignores the awed gazes of novices of the guild as he sits right there, on the floor, and pours over the book.

_         coldharbour is the realm of molag baal. as such, it is rather easy to see his influence and will in it. the whole realm seems to be one large torture chamber filled with different ways for the daedric prince to assert his domination over mortals. those who enter for long durations are never truly returned. their bodies may remain, yes, but their spirits are long gone. _

        he feels something turn in his stomach but won’t acknowledge it. mannimarco is strong. he can survive. but still, there’s that image of him, seeming like some wraithish interpretation of times long past clouds. he looked so scared. so defeated. vanus feels his eyes welling again, and quickly wipes them away.

        “vanus!”

        the call of his name drags him away from his book, making him acutely aware of the bewildered mages staring at him. his cheeks flush, and he closes the tome. his advisor, lovilas, seems to be the only person unphased, staring at him with the weight of the sun’s sharp glare.

        “vanus. you will meet me in your office at once,” he commands.

        “no. what i  _ will  _ do is refuse to be barked at like a dog. can’t you see i’m studying?” he asks.

        “i can,” lovilas says. “and i’ll help you. just meet me in your office and stop this display.”

        sometimes vanus feels like he isn’t even the archmagister any more. so many people pretend to control him, to own him, and it brings back every nasty feeling that stole away in an eight year old serf’s heart. he stands, a defiant look on his face, but goes back into his study anyways. lovilas does not wait a second before the door is shut behind them to start his lecture.

        “have you gone mad? have you gone absolutely insane? i’m genuinely curious.”

        “i think we all have,” vanus says. “but that’s neither here nor there. you told me you’ll help.”

        “and i will,” lovilas continues, “as soon as you stop being absurd and tell me what this is all about.”

        vanus pauses. he considers how to phrase this, to frame this situation. the moments he shared with mannimarco on artaeum are secret. they are notched close to his heart. he refuses to loose them upon the world.

        “an old colleague of mine is in trouble,” vanus says. “an ex-lover, in fact. i need to conduct a rescue mission to coldharbour.”

        lovilas cocks his head for a moment and stares before letting out a finite exhale of laughter. “that’s real funny, vanus. for a moment there i thought you were serious before you suggested leaving the mage’s guild and pointlessly engaging on a suicide mission for some girl.”

        vanus elects to ignore the assumption for a moment. “it isn’t pointless. i saw them, sobbing, helpless and scared. i have to try.”

        “them?” lovilas asks. “we’re not talking about a boy here, are we?”

        “what does it matter?” vanus asks.

        “because if we  _ are,  _ i have to wonder if we’re talking about a certain necromancer.”

        vanus’s cheeks flush. “what if we are?”

        “if we are, in fact, considering rescuing the worm king mannimarco from whatever hell he rests in, i’d have to report you to the board for treason,” lovilas says. vanus feels his heart race, and his fingers instinctively begin humming with magick. lovilas continues. “i’d also have to urge the archmagister to think with his head once as opposed to his pelvis.”

        “i resent the insinuation!” vanus yells. “mannimarco isn’t just some- just some  _ fuck,  _ he was everything to me at one point!” flames bud at his fingertips.

        “vanus, calm down,” lovilas says, voice pointed. “you must let me finish.” he gives a reassuring nod, and the fire dissipates. “ _ however _ , if i, a friend, am merely helping a fellow colleague rescue someone they loved... i’d be willing to share my knowledge.”

        vanus isn’t ready to sweep lovilas into a hug or cry tears of joy just yet. but he decides to trust him. lovilas sits down at vanus’s desk, pulls a quill from a drawer, and begins to write. he charts out the realms of oblivion and their relation to the inner cosmology of aurbis. they formulate a plan, a series of triple portals with untraceable destinations, and a way to rescue a very dangerous man.

        that night, vanus leaves in his riding robes. his satchel is slung over his shoulder, containing the map and various magical baubles. his staff feels strange in his hand now. and as he levitates both him and his horse into the night sky, riding among the clouds, all he can think about is what this means.


End file.
